Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryant, US statesman (1860-1925)

You cannot do anything better in this life than run your own perfect race.

Roger Black, British athlete (b.1966)

The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.

Martina Navratilova, Czech-born US tennis player (b.1956)

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Walter Bagehot, British author, economist (1826-1877)

Most of the things worth doing in the world have been declared impossible before they were done.

Louis Brandeis, US supreme court justice (1856-1941)

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer and explorer (1919-2008)

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.

Harry Lime, character in ‘The Third Man’ by Graham Greene (1904-1991)

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

John Ruskin, British writer, art critic (1819-1900)

Too low they build who build beneath the stars.

Edward Young, British poet, dramatist, literary critic (1683-1765)

Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.

About Me

In order, I am a family man, a northerner, and a writer. Scarily it is over forty years since BBC Schools Radio gave me my first commission, and I have been writing as a part-time freelance ever since, mainly plays for the Beeb, and for education publishers. I got involved also with writing questions and formats for various TV and radio quiz shows. It's only in the last few years that I have been able to write full time, and in that period have produced: a collection of short stories 'We Never Had It So Good'; a thriller novel '11:59', which reached the semi-final of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2010; an historical novel 'Mr Stephenson's Regret', an Amazon semi-finalist in 2011; a psychological mystery 'As Close As You Are To Me'; and a micro-fiction collection 'HE and SHE: 1000 stories in 1000 tweets'. I also do readings and workshops.